


Fitting In

by aces_low



Series: drabbles and ish [20]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Brad is a good boyfriend, College Student Ray, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 23:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12692649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces_low/pseuds/aces_low
Summary: Ray has an argument with some classmates.





	Fitting In

**Author's Note:**

> Was prompted to write some BradRay where they say I love you in response to self-depreciation.

Ray’s whole body is shaking.

It’s not like when he was on Ripped Fuel, which always kept a constant buzz running through his body.

He’s fuming and twitching and kind of wants to hit something. It’s like when he’d been coming down off the Ripped Fuel and felt that surge of rage.

Only, instead of tackling a guy twice his size, now Ray has to let it just thrum beneath the surface of his skin, he clenches his teeth as he stomps his way into the house, slamming every door he comes into contact with.

“What the hell are you doing?” Brad’s voice comes from the hallway, his body appearing a moment later, and Ray nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Jesus, fuck, Brad,” he says clutching his chest as he tries to slow his pounding heart. “I forgot you were here.”

“So, you usually just break all the doors while I’m gone?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “Also, I’m flattered to know it took less than seven hours for you to forget me.”

Ray rolls his eyes and pushes past him to make his way into the bedroom.

“I had a shitty day,” he explains when Brad follows.

Of course, he hadn’t forgotten that Brad was home, it was just a momentary lapse in memory due to his brain’s higher functions too busy with being furious to remember anything else. Like the fact that Brad had finally come home Friday evening and Ray had spent the whole weekend welcoming him back. This morning he hadn’t wanted to get up to go to class, but Brad had insisted that Ray not change his schedule now that he’s home for a little while.

“What happened?” Brad asks, leaning against the wall as Ray sits down on the bed.

“Just…school stuff.” Ray feels himself deflate, the anger seeping out of him leaving him tired and itchy.

Brad raises an eyebrow at that. “As in tests or papers or…?”

Ray sighs and pulls his shirt up over his head. “I don’t…fit there.”

He grimaces as he speaks, it feels so small compared to what Brad deals with, to what they went through together. He knows what real stress is, what it means to have people’s lives in his hands, and yet he’s still getting upset about petty bullshit.

“I thought college was all about shouting out your random opinions and letting everyone praise your amazing intellect. That seems like the perfect place for you,” Brad muses.

Ray rolls his eyes. “Nobody listens to me.”

“I didn’t realize that was an option,” Brad says, tilting his head to the side, probably daydreaming about all the days they’ve spent together where just not listening to Ray was something he could do.

“It’s not classes,” Ray tries to explain. He is doing fine grades-wise, and even some of his professors are pretty cool and actually seem to like him. It’s all the dumb 19-year-old college kids who think they have the world figured out and think they have Ray pegged, the same way those same types of people thought they had Ray pegged back in high school. It’s one of the reasons he decided to skip out on college the first time around, he’d had enough of the Chad’s and Dylan’s and Ashley’s of the world for a while.

Brad just trains his eyes on Ray, waiting for him to figure out how to say what he wants to say.

“My class started talking about the war today,” he finally explains.

That makes Brad cross his arms and shift his stance a little, clearly, he has an idea of where this is headed.

“They just…nobody knew what the fuck they were talking about, Brad. It was just a bunch of 19 and 20-year-olds talking about a place they’d never been to, and people they’ve never met and acted like they were all enlightened, when they didn’t know shit.”

Brad frowns but stays quiet. 

“Some liberal dick suck tried to explain to me what was going on in the war, tried to tell me that I ‘just didn’t get it’. Right, I was only fucking _part of it_ , but sure, _I_ don’t get it.”

“Did you tell him you were a marine?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Brad asks, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Because it wasn’t relevant.”

“You having a first-hand account of a matter that you’re debating isn’t relevant? I know it’s been a while since you were on the debate team, but that seems like a pretty big check in your favor.”

“This wasn’t a debate,” Ray explains. If it had been, he wouldn’t be as upset as he is, if it had been a debate he would have been allowed to finish any of his thoughts out loud before a new classmate started shouting over him with their own opinions.

“Still, maybe if you’d told them that you’d actually been over there they’d have taken you a little more seriously.”

“I shouldn’t need to have to throw that out to get people to listen to me. Plus, it wouldn’t have helped. In the eyes of most of those assholes, everyone over there is just a bunch of Trombleys and Manimals. Nobody thinks about how there are people like you there too,” Ray spits out, thinking about the shit his classmates had spewed about the types of people that go into the military.

Brad finally moves to sit down on the bed next to him, wrapping his arm around Ray and pulling him to his side.

“You know it doesn’t matter what any of your shit-for-brains classmates think, right?”

Ray nods because he does know that. But today just highlighted something that has been niggling in his brain for a while now, maybe even since he was a teenager.

“I just feel like I don’t fit anywhere,” he admits, ducking his head at how small his voice sounds.

“What?”

Ray sighs. “I didn’t fit in Missouri, and I don’t fit in California. I didn’t fit in high school and I didn’t fit in the Marines, and now I don’t fit in college. It’s like…I just don’t belong anywhere.”

“Hey, look at me,” Brad says, reaching over to tilt Ray’s head up.

Ray meets his eyes to see that Brad has his ‘this is serious business’ face on, the face that could always make Ray stand at attention.

“You’re Josh Ray Person, you don’t wait for anyone or anything to invite you in, you just maneuver your way around and fit however you feel like. You belong anywhere you want to go. And you belong right here, with me.”

His heartbeat thumps loudly in his ears, and his skin warms as he listens to the sincerity in Brad’s voice. A soothing balm settles over the frustration and rejection he’s been feeling and he grins now before rolling his eyes and pulling away.

“I love you too, you cheesy loser.”

He laughs as he goes to stand, but Brad just pulls him back, rolling them to pin Ray down, a fake glare on his face from Ray’s teasing.

Before Brad can say anything though, Ray lifts himself up as much as Brad’s hold will allow, capturing his lips in a kiss.

He pulls away slightly for just a moment to whisper a soft “thank you” against Brad’s lips before kissing him again.

It doesn’t take long for Ray to get lost in it, in Brad, no longer worried about his place in the rest of the world because right here with Brad, he knows he fits.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
